The Timetrade SYOT
by chromemuffin
Summary: SYOT When a group of young men and women claiming to be from a ruined future hijack the 80th Hunger Games, Panem is thrown into confusion and chaos. Declaring that they will change history, the group of twelve time travelers name their target: a tribute in the Hunger Games who they claim will someday bring the world to the brink of destruction. Time travel AU
1. Navigators

**The Timetrade**

Summary: When a group of young men and women claiming to be from a ruined future hijack the 80th Hunger Games, Panem is thrown into confusion and chaos. Declaring that they will change history, the group of twelve time travelers name their target: a tribute in the Hunger Games who they claim will someday bring the world to the brink of destruction

SYOT Info: For this story, I'll be accepting tributes (the usual 24) as well as about 6 time traveler characters. Please go to my profile for submission information. I will only accept submissions through PM and will update my profile page with the accepted characters fairly regularly. This SYOT isn't first come, first serve, so please do your best.

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**Chapter One: Navigators**

_Etaín held the timepiece between trembling hands as she stood alone in the center of our group, arranged in a tight circle of eleven human bodies that would soon no longer exist in the world as we knew it. The whirring of machines echoed in the steel walls, nearly blocking out her voice as she turned and looked each of us in the eye. Tears gone, all that was left in each of us was a resolve as cold as the metal plating beneath our feet._

_We had said our farewells, if there was anyone left to say goodbye to at all. We had left flowers on makeshift graves and settled our debts and our grudges. After spending one last night staring up at the hazy, smoky sky and the spaces where bits of our world were beginning to peel away, we all gathered at this tiny facility the next morning. It sat among the graves of past research facilities, low to the ground and forever stained by the strange yellow-red streaks left behind by the acid rain. This graveyard would be where we disappeared from our world._

_"Never forget where you come from," Etaín said in a steady voice, "or you will lose sight of where you are going. And don't any of you dare die until we can secure a future different from the one you were forced to live through. Remember that this is why we are here."_

_After the last words left Etaín's lips, the circular silver machinery in her hands began to hum a metallic tune and a sharp ring ran through our ears, piercing our heads with all the force of an iron pike. So intense was the sensation that we could hardly remember to breathe. The sight before our eyes twisted and morphed into a starburst of color so vivid it seemed that we had been living our whole lives blind._

_I had never dabbled in the timetrade. Despite the spell that it held over our lives, for many of us in that room it had been the first time we ever experienced the utter disorienting sensation that was time travel. Many had described it as nauseating, alien, or even intrusive._

_What I felt at that time was the distinct feeling that me as a person no longer existed._

_That is to say, if asked who I was, I would have been unable to respond. It was as if all knowledge, including my own name, had fled from my mind and left me floating in limbo without the ability to move, emote, or even breathe._

_It strips you of everything that makes you an intelligent human being. All it is, really, is a jumbled mess of sensations crammed into your head. Your senses are so overwhelmed that you can hardly think past their intensity. In that moment, I was unaware of anything about myself - even of the past that haunted my nights and tugged at my waking days as well._

_Maybe because I didn't know who I was anymore, it was the most at peace I had ever felt in my life. I wondered later if anyone else felt the same way - if they, too, were able to experience just one bit of peace in their lives at that moment._

_The timetrade is a horrifying beast that rears its head and sinks its fangs into the throat of anyone who approaches it. It shatters conflicts with more conflict, it gives people false hope that they can change the world. It was only after I experienced it for myself did I realize how that promise of peace, the briefest peace in the world, was perhaps the reason why people kept going back to the trade._

_It takes away your ability to reason and gives you absolute elation._

_And when it spits you out, you are left with the vague sense that you have left some important part of your identity as a human being behind in that limbo. It is something you will never get back._

_We landed in the middle of the 80th Annual Hunger Games with those sensations still lingering in every nerve of our bodies._

They appeared out of nowhere, materializing out of thin air in the middle of the Cornucopia as the countdown was about to start. The tributes were probably the most surprised of all, unable to write the phenomenon off as special effects, and even the commentators faltered in that moment.

Etaín held the silver machine in her hands, its round surface thrumming with heat so intense that she was forced to drop it - and as soon as she did, it shattered into a million unrecognizable pieces on the dusty ground beneath her feet. She lifted her head to where they knew a camera would have been strategically placed and fixed her dark blue eyes straight ahead, as if a murderous beast was standing before her.

"This is not a unique gimmick that the Gamemakers have suddenly decided to add into the Games," she spoke in her normal, even, slightly deep voice. The artificial wind twisted her dark hair around her face in wild clouds, but she ignored how it obscured her vision. "We have come here from the future, _your_ future, to change history as _we_ know it will happen."

There was silence for a long stretch of time. The eleven men and women, boys and girls, at her back were as still as statues guarding the halls of some elite palace from another era. Their simple uniforms of tan and dark grey lapels stood out against the fashion of this time period - it was an old style of military uniform that had not been used in Panem in over four hundred years at the time of the 80th Hunger Games.

Figuring that she had given the Gamemakers enough time to make their excuses, Etaín continued: "In the future that we come from, the world as we know it is about to tear itself apart at the seams. The planet itself will simply fracture, reality will become empty. We have come here to stop it from ever happening. You are free to believe us or not."

Etaín was well aware that she was only speaking to the tributes and the Gamemakers at this point, but it had never been their intention to address the masses anyways. She looked around at the trees that stretched out all around them. The slight rise in the land to the west ended in a steep gully, while the rest of the arena was filled to the brim with marshlands.

"We will prevent that future from ever coming to pass," she repeated. "And to do so, we have come to eradicate the one person who will start this world on its path to destruction. That person is standing here now, alive, as one of those tributes who are to take part in your _game_. What you now decide to do with this knowledge is up to you. Just know that stopping us might mean the end of your _peaceful_ era as you know it."

Etaín turned her upper body slightly to the right, where a tall young man with hair so dark brown as to appear black was standing. Without a word, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek black box. Etaín turned to the dusty ground and watched as the silver flecks, all that remained of the timepiece that brought them here, floated away on the wind.

The young man flicked a switch, adjusted a dial, and suddenly the Gamemakers in the Capitol, miles away from the arena, began to curse and uselessly tap at their control panels.

"And so the Games begin," said a much younger girl with a peculiar shade of auburn hair that seemed almost muddy in color. "They won't let us kill their tributes so easily. Those pressure pads should still work, so they can't move for the moment..."

Etaín shook her head. "We talked about this already, Fianna. We need this time to disappear. Knowing the Gamemakers they probably won't cancel the Games over something that they can easily write off as part of the show, but if we ruin things from the start, they might not be so forgiving. Let the kids go for now. Remember, we only have a few uses left on that signal jammer; we need to use them wisely."

The auburn haired girl nodded her consent, though the draw of her eyebrows indicated that she didn't quite understand Etaín's reasoning. Nevertheless, she failed to speak any further.

The group of twelve people who had come out of literally nowhere began to split into three subgroups, all while the tributes of the 80th Hunger Games looked on, helpless and exposed on the platforms surrounding the Cornucopia.

Perhaps what was on their minds more than the fact that these strangers had appeared out of thin air claiming to be time travelers and more than their doomsday predictions was their clear and cold hearted declaration that one among the tributes was their target.

Who was that target among them? A person so terrible that he or she would cause the destruction of the world had to be someone to respect, to fear, to target. None of the tributes had seemed capable of such a thing back during their training in the Capitol, nor in their interview or reaping.

The tributes of the 80th Hunger Games were simply normal tributes, after all, surely not capable of something so terrible that so many people would come to the past just to kill them.

That was, if this time travel thing was even real, or if this hoax, too, was part of the Games.

Either way, game or not, they faced forward with the grim realization that they would have to play anyways.

By the time the Gamemakers regained control of the central part of the arena, the strange men and women had already disappeared into the forest and the tributes were quietly resting on the platforms. The confusion and uncertainty that lingered on their faces were the only proof that those oddly dressed people had been there at all.

Everyone got a bit of a late start, even the Careers.

* * *

Is this story really about time travel? you might ask. Yup, it's straight up time travel. I just wanted to have fun writing about this topic, so I chose fanfiction as a medium. Just go with it, please. Suspend your disbelief for the sake of the story and have fun with the dimension hopping madness. Don't worry, there's a plot in here somewhere.

As you can tell, this story starts in media res, so the reapings, training, and train rides will usually appear in the story later on as flashbacks of some sort. I like this style so that I can start writing and updating even without having all of the spots filled in yet. I have six pre-created characters, so look forward to some updates during the submission period. Also, the "target" tribute who the time travelers want to hunt down has not yet been created, so you can try to apply for that spot if you want (just follow the instructions on my profile).


	2. Machine

**The Timetrade**

Authors Notes: SYOT is still open! I need more tributes and a few more time travelers. If you haven't been accepted yet, it's because I'm waiting to see if there are more entries so that I can weigh my options.

Poll time: How do you feel about a series of side stories about the tributes and navigators' (time travelers - I'm going to start using this word to refer to them) pasts? I've planned for flashback sequences to head off certain chapters, but I'm not sure if this will be too jarring or annoying. I was thinking of gathering up a few and posting them in a separate story for one-shots.

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**Chapter Two: Machine**

Leah knew the layout of this arena better than the back of her hand. Each of the navigators on this team had been forced to study the map of the 80th Hunger Games' arena until they could remember every detail better than they knew their own homes. They knew the exact placement of the trees, the cameras, and every vantage point that had been built into the landscape by the Gamemakers. As she led her three younger subordinates through the narrow strips of dry ground strategically placed around the swamps that covered the arena, she reminded herself that they could not possibly get lost.

It would not be until the 86th Hunger Games that the Gamemakers would gain the ability to shift entire blocks of the arena around to throw off the tributes. Since they knew the terrain and every obstacle that was built into the 80th Games, Leah knew that they would be fine.

The very tips of her fingers still felt like ice, no matter how much she tried to convince herself of that fact. She itched to warm them, but it wouldn't do to broadcast to her teammates just how she really felt about the situation. They were far from mindless sheep, after all. They wouldn't follow her just because Etaín selected her as leader of the group or because she was the oldest among them at twenty-five.

"The only unknown factor is the tributes themselves, isn't it?" Fianna commented. Unlike the others, she bore no obvious weapons on her person - Leah knew that all she possessed was a small firearm tucked into her boot - but even though she was the most defenseless of them all, the sixteen-year-old seemed unperturbed.

Leah scoffed in response, the words flowing out easily as if they were still in the training center in their time. "Unless you haven't been paying attention that should be obvious. Why else do you think we split up from the others? Do you think we really want to play hide-and-seek with these kids?"

"I know, I know," Fianna huffed, shoving the stray strands of her muddy auburn hair away from her eyes, only for them to bounce back into place as she ran. "I still think we should have gotten it done and over with before. Now the Gamemakers will probably send the tributes out after us. As if the mutts aren't enough to worry about."

"The last thing we want is for them to kill all of us by setting this entire place on fire or something," Leah pointed out. "It'll be fine, so don't worry your pretty little head over it. Just keep an eye out; it won't take the tributes long to sort themselves out."

The only guy in their group, the dark haired and muscular Danix, briskly ran to Fianna's side with a wide smile only he could manage to pull off during such a situation. Leah rolled her eyes mildly before he even started talking, turning to face forward as they jogged through the trees. It was fine just this once. Anything to keep the nerves away, after all.

"But do not worry, I understand! Fianna, you are only worried for the safety of your friends and comrades in this strange world," Danix said in an uplifting voice as he executed an awkward, on account of their movement, bow. That cheery smile was still spread across his face. "For what it is worth, I, too share your concerns. Even the most experienced veteran can be taken off guard by a novice's uncoordinated moves!"

"Is that another of your zen quotes?" Fianna asked dubiously, though not in an unkind voice that Leah might have used if she had spoken instead. "Never heard that one before. But thanks anyways."

"Yeah, don't worry," the last girl of the group, Jeanne, chimed. Her flat, even, and slightly hard to hear voice drifted into the conversation unexpectedly. "Danix and I have practiced our defensive maneuvers countless times. We'll definitely protect you."

Fianna exhaled an uncomfortable noise that filled the fog cloaked air momentarily. Leah turned around again to fix her with a sly, knowing glare as she protested, "I can fend for myself. Don't look at me like that, everyone, I'm not scared!"

Even though the sixteen-year-old held her composure remarkably well, all one had to do was look at the almost flawless skin on her hands to draw the conclusion that she had seen far less combat than any of the other navigators. Those fingers were trained to handle computer interfaces and fine-tune weapons systems, after all. Leah spared a second to push down the bitter taste that was crawling up her throat.

The girl couldn't help the fact that she was born and raised in the Capitol. Even though the city was regularly besot by bombings and had its own militia, there were plenty of citizens like Fianna who had never seen the battlefield and never touched more than a kitchen knife in her lifetime. It wasn't like Leah hated her, at least, not anymore. And the fact that Fianna was here of her own free will should have been proof enough for her that things like birthplace and bloodlines should not have mattered.

At least Leah, Jeanne, and Danix knew their way around fighting. To many people like Leah, it was practically a natural reflex to the point that she could no longer imagine living without it. In that way, perhaps she was like those Career tributes, but the eager grins on their faces never ceased to make her squirm.

No, they were different. Completely different, she convinced herself. Even though she had only ever saw them through the sheen of the recorded copies of the past Hunger Games, she could clearly see in their eyes the remarkable cruelty that only humans were capable of possessing.

There was nothing they cared for more than the thrill of battle, the excitement of recognition and praise. All of the tributes were sad children in one way or another, Leah could indeed recognize this, but the Careers were like dogs trained to do nothing but fight and kill. It had made them nothing but the Capitol's tools.

Sort of like the navigators. But they were different, she told herself, different because they had a purpose and a goal.

"Hey, Karate Kid," Leah called out. They had reached an area of the swampland that was extremely hard to pass through, but they had to go this way or risk wasting precious hours going around it. She turned to Danix, who was giving her a lifted brow at the nickname. "What do you think? Feel anything off?"

Her words came a little slowly and reluctantly. After all, she was still not entirely convinced that Danix's intuition was foolproof. Others, such as the younger girls Fianna and Jeanne, actually believed that they could rely upon it. Leah was just a little more skeptical, but she let him do his thing anyway.

Danix stood perfectly still, head tilted slightly as he listened to the low noises on the wind. He might have appeared relaxed to anyone who didn't know him, but Leah could see that his muscles were just lax enough for him to lunge into action at any second.

The visibility here was extremely poor. The sounds were, as they knew from the Capitol's data, artificially muffled in the deepest areas of the swamps so that the only thing they could hear besides each other would be the cannon fire or sparse announcements by the commentator. Of course, this was an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time.

"I believe so," Danix said at long last. Even though Fianna looked particularly antsy, even she had refrained from asking him about the results prematurely. "They are not close, however, or else I would be able to feel their presence."

Leah nodded. "Then we continue on. Hurry up. The Gamemakers probably told them to hunt us down before they start killing each other. Even though we're more than capable of fending off the little brats, I don't want to get stuck fighting in this stupid swamp. Geez, the others probably have it better..."

People were desperate when they had nothing left to lose, after all. Leah knew that all too well. She fingered the tight scar that stretched up from the right side of her lips. It had healed long ago, but she could feel the searing pain of the blood swelling from the wound as if it just happened seconds ago.

They walked for a long time, the artificial fog hugging them close the whole time. Their boots and pants were smeared in mud, the rest of their clothes damp from the moisture in the air. Leah was glad that her hair was short, otherwise it would be sticking all over her cheeks like Fianna's was currently doing.

All of a sudden along their journey Danix paused, almost like an animal that could sense a weapon pointed at its heart but was unable to see the hunter. Everyone's hands flew to their weapons and they receded into the shadow and cover of the trees that twisted up from the ground like ghostly specters. Leah's hand tightened around the firearm at her side as she pushed Fianna into the middle of their formation.

After a few moments, they could hear the muffled sounds of people speaking - more like arguing. The metallic ting of their assorted weapons broke through the dense fog, ominously growing louder by the second.

_"You guys from Nine and Seven, do exactly what we tell you,"_ said a sharp, cold female voice.

_"You're just going to use us as bait, aren't you?"_ said a male voice, obviously tinged with the bitter resignation of someone who knew that this tentative plan was not about to end well. _"We should at least try and talk to them. What if-"_

"What if they're really from the 'future' - what are you, a kid? That's so stupidly impossible I didn't even believe it for a second!" The female voice was closer now. Just by her tone, though high pitched and feminine, Leah could tell that this was a Career. The old Panem accent was apparent in the tributes' speech - it was sharper and harsher on some of the syllables that had softened over time in the navigators' future.

Leah lifted her eyes to meet the others, nodding to them and mouthing the words, _rendezvous B._ 'Rendezvous at location B.' Location B was a low-lying, dense area of swampland that had several outlets to fresh water on the other side of a large plateau.

It took several minutes for the group of tributes to reach their location, as they seemed to have gotten stuck in the swamp a few times and were didn't actually have any clue as to where the navigators had gone.

If Leah had a choice, she would have just tried to bypass them and get on with the plan as soon as possible. But Etaín and those portly administrators back in their time had come up with this idea of giving the tributes a choice: ally with them or fight to the death. Just like real players in the game, she'd commented.

Leah stepped out from the thick shadows and fog, feeling bereft of cover and more on edge than she ever felt facing down Capitol airships on the battlefield. She took her hand off her firearm, at least comforted by the fact that the worst the tributes would be armed with were bows and arrows or a crossbow. She and Danix could take them down if their bare hands if they needed to, but she had a feeling that they would be running soon.

Stepping out into the open, they left Jeanne to protect Fianna. The other two girls were slowly drifting deeper into the marshlands, heading off to the rendezvous point without risking combat.

"Before you shoot or bludgeon us to death, hear us out," Leah said slowly. While her hands weren't up in the air like a suicidal idiot, she had tried to make herself look as harmless as possible. Admittedly, people had told her before that she _never_ looked harmless with that scar making it look like she was a murderous clown, but at least she was _trying_.

"As if!" That was the Career girl who had been talking earlier. She had long, dark brown hair, and was currently in a crouch, holding a light and versatile sword in a loose grip.

"Wait, violence should never be the answer!" Danix exclaimed as he and Leah were forced to dart in two different directions to avoid the girl with the glinting metal sword coming at them. Another girl, this one tall but less honed and obviously less experienced with the lance in her hands, went after Danix. "Peace is-"

"Now is _not_ the time, zen freak!" Leah hissed. She was stuck with the cruel sounding girl, while the other tributes were thankfully hovering in the background, unwilling to get in between them. "Seriously, I know it sounds insane, but we're from the future! What do you gain by killing us, huh?"

"This is the Hunger Games! Only one person gets out alive!"

Leah threw herself down and to the right, hitting the ground hard but avoiding a severe downwards slash from the sword. She cursed as she warily backed away from the Career girl, who had recovered quickly. Instead of charging forward, she motioned for one of the other tributes to lend a hand.

The rest barely had a grip on their weapons and only inched forward a few steps, long enough for Leah to make a break for the thick fog covered marsh.

"We're getting out of here! Forget convincing them!" she called out. "No arguing!"

Danix, who had an easy and almost laughable time of avoiding the tall, wavy haired girl with the lance, tossed her one glance of protest before turning around and running in the opposite direction. No matter, she thought, as he would be able to find his way to the rendezvous point easily.

"We want to help you!" Danix implored one last time. Then he threw out, "We know how to get out of this arena without anyone having to die! Please think about that!"

Leah had long lost sight of both Danix and the tributes as she weaved in and out of the trees, but she heard the frustrated calls piercing through the fog and the clatter of confusion as the tributes began to argue. Good - at least Danix got them to turn against each other. Maybe they would only have to take out the Career tributes.

And, of course, their main objective.

Leah was sick and tired of mud, humidity, and fog by the time she and Danix found each other again. It had been a harrowing moment in which she almost aimed her gun at his head and he almost kicked her into the nearest pool of stagnant, foul smelling swamp water, which was undoubtedly teeming with snake mutts and deadly bacteria.

"Well, you did something right," Leah admitted as they were walking. It wasn't much longer to the meet up point now. "Maybe the more timid ones will think twice before attacking us again."

"Why, thank you for the compliment, Sister, but-"

"And the moment's gone."

Danix laughed at her comment as straightened his back from the exaggerated bow he had tried to execute. Leah huffed, quickening her pace.

It wasn't long before they encountered other people. They had been sticking to the blind spots of the arena until that confrontation, and Leah had made sure to reorient herself so that the cameras couldn't track her, but they weren't the only ones who could have stumbled into a blind spot.

This time they didn't need Danix's intuition to tell that tributes were approaching them from the right - they both heard the sounds of talking and the heavy footsteps of at least two people. Danix looked to her for confirmation and at her assenting nod, he crept forward and called out while still prepared to bolt or strike at a moment's notice.

"And who might you be? We know where you are, but do not fear, friends! We do not wish to cause you harm."

Leah breathed an exasperated sigh. That was what she got for leaving it up to Danix.

The muffled sounds stopped for a moment and her muscles tensed in anticipation, her eyes and ears straining to sense something, _anything_ that would indicate an attack.

"We don't want to fight either," came an unfamiliar boy's voice. It was deep, so he was defnitely one of the older ones. "You said we could talk. Can we?"

"Yes," Leah announced. "Come out of that fog and tell us who you are, first."

A quiet protest, tinged with no small amount of hesitation and anxiety, followed her offer. After a moment, two forms stepped out from the heavy white curtain of moisture that clung to their skin. The boy, definitely seventeen or eighteen, was tall and lean with dark hair and skin tanned from working outside in whatever District he was from. The girl was about the same age with light brown hair tied into a tight ponytail. She wasn't clinging to the boy or anything, but she did look ready to bolt at any given moment.

"My name is Dominick," said the boy, "but call me Nick. And I'm from Seven."

"I'm Charlotte," the girl offered reluctantly. "I'm also from District 7."

"Do you seriously know a way out?" The boy blurted the question out, but the moment the words slipped from his lips, he was glancing around him as if expecting someone to jump out of the fog. "The Gamemakers made it harder to break out after the 75th Games."

Leah chuckled at his antics, relaxing just a little. "So long as you don't shout your location to the world, no one will be able to hear you from here. This is a blindspot in the arena's camera and audio system."

"But do you really...? Are you really..." said Dominick.

"From the future?" Charlotte finished. Unlike the boy, she seemed to be more dubious, but to be fair it did sound like they were high on some Capitol party drug.

Danix grinned. "Of course!"

"Weren't you with that group back there? The one with the Career with a sword," Leah interrupted. She fixed them with a glare.

Dominick tried smiling, but he ended up facing Danix to talk. Judging by how he avoided looking at Leah for too long, she figured that he had trouble getting around that grotesque scar on her face. With a sigh, she motioned for everyone to start walking.

"The Gamemakers said that we had to kill all of you if we wanted to get out of here," Charlotte offered slowly, as if apprehensive that they would suddenly lunge for her neck. "Nick and I stuck together, but..."

"We were unfortunate enough to start off by the Careers," Dominick filled in, "so we ended up having to follow them. I think we managed to ditch the others after you ran off...It's a good thing this fog is so thick. But I can't see a thing..."

"How can _you_ see?" Charlotte said dubiously. Both of them were keeping a respectable distance, but so long as Danix wasn't on edge around them, Leah figured that they could risk making more progress towards their destination.

"We can't, obviously," Leah rolled her eyes. "We studied the map beforehand. Back in our time. You know, because we _are_ from the future."

She could tell that this was going to be a long conversation.

"If you tell me that it's not possible one more time, I'm tossing you in the swamp," she spat. "It's possible, we're here, and we're gonna get out of here as soon as we can. You can choose to follow us or not, but we aren't going to babysit you. If you're a deadweight, we're leaving you."

"I understand that this is overwhelming," Danix said gently upon seeing the looks of utter confusion on their faces. "Trust is hard to give to strangers. I am glad that you came to us, though. "

"But how can we know, I mean..." Charlotte hesitated. She glanced at her district partner. He seemed a bit more receptive to their words. "You could be from the Capitol."

Leah rolled her eyes. "Like I'm from that godforsaken place. I'm from Two - no, not the District 2 you know. There aren't anymore Careers in District 2. In fact, there aren't anymore Hunger Games at all."

"That's-"

"Instead of the Games, we have endless war that's wrecked the country so badly it's falling apart at the seams. Literally at the seams. Think of an old, muddy shirt that is so messed up it can only be used as a dish rag."

Danix nodded. "The sky itself, which was once a clear and majestic sight in our youth, is now fracturing - that is what they named this phenomenon."

Leah breathed evenly, remembering the days when the clouds in the sky had been whole. It was hard to describe how a broken sky looked - just that it made everyone who dared lay their eyes upon it feel the hopelessness and despair of their situation, no matter where they were in the world.

A sky that was falling apart like glass, a land that was crumbling and ablaze from countless bombings with technology that grew ever stronger and more destructive. Danix had said that the ocean was becoming inky black and that there were hardly any fish left in the sea to be had.

She wondered what the Districts really looked like in this time period. She had only ever seen a few Capitol-produced and edited pictures of them before. Even though they were still in shambles from the failure of the second rebellion, they had to look better than her ruined home in District 2.

Anything was better than the skeleton of a land so besot with death that its ground and rivers continuously ran as red as a setting sun.

* * *

I know, it's a little annoying to have the tributes cluelessly asking over and over if they really are time travelers and if they actually get them out of the arena. But if a bunch of random people just started babbling about alternate times and dimensions, I bet you'd be a little shellshocked, dubious, and/or have a ton of questions.

I wasn't able to work everyone's characters into this chapter because I need a few more tributes for them to reasonably interact with.

A big thanks goes out to everyone who has showed an interest in the story so far!


	3. Stars

**The Timetrade**

Authors Notes: SYOT is still open! I need more tributes and one more time traveler. If you haven't been accepted yet, it's because I'm waiting to see if there are more entries so that I can weigh my options.

* * *

**Chapter Three: Stars**

"So how exactly _do_ you plan on getting out of here?" Dominick inquired as he peered over Fianna's shoulder. They had regrouped with Fianna and Jeanne shortly after meeting the two tributes from District 7 and were currently crouched among the densely packed ferns and swamp grasses that tickled their exposed skin. Mosquitoes nipped insistently at their hands and faces and Leah was somewhat sure that little creatures were also trying to eat them alive from underwater.

Fianna cast the boy a withering glare, tossing her arm out behind her as if to swat him away like a fly. Without a word, she returned to the heavy black box that Danix was holding for her while she messed with its delicate wiring. Jeanne had taken Charlotte to survey the area about two hundred meters away, despite the girl's misgivings. The fog in this area was lighter, which was honestly more of a hinderance since it would be easier to be spotted and heard now.

"I'm not sure of the details. Tech isn't my area of expertise," Leah ended up telling Dominick with a sigh. She watched as the boy cast a quick glance at the two girls in the distance, his brow furrowed slightly in worry. Well, he couldn't have been staring at Jeanne, who had all the expression and attractiveness of a robot when she was concentrating, so Leah figured that they had a pair of love birds on their hand. She bit back the snide remark she would have spoken under other circumstances.

"It's like a powerful signal jammer," Fianna finally supplied with a distinct twang of irritation to her voice. She sat back, giving Danix a grin and motioning for him to nestle the black box amongst the twisted roots of a hybrid tree that Fianna once smartly called the bastard child of a cypress and a mangrove.

Not that Leah knew what a cypress or a mangrove was in the first place. The hybrid tree had plenty of tall swamp grasses and bushes surrounding it, so that the key to their getaway was securely entrenched and concealed. That was all that mattered.

"Are you from District 3?" asked Dominick. He was smiling at Fianna, who had a much pleasanter expression now that she was done with her work. Wiping her mud-smudged hands on her equally mud-stained pants, she rose to her feet and shook her head. Though she was an entire head shorter than the tall tribute, she was hardly intimidated by his stature and looked up at him with a fearless grin.

"Nope! I'm from the Capitol!"

Everyone froze except for the auburn haired girl, who was looking between Charlotte and Dominick expectantly. Leah spotted Jeanne holding Charlotte back from running away into the (quite dangerous) swamp. Even the collected, well-mannered Dominick seemed lost for words. He simply gaped at Fianna's tiny form as if he expected her to grow two fire breathing heads or something. Maybe he thought Capitolites from the future would have found a way to do that by now.

"Come now, friends, as the saying goes: do not judge a book by its cover! It matters not where we are from, only that we are comrades now!" Danix said cheerfully in an effort to lighten the mood. At least Dominick was starting to calm down after the initial shock. He looked down at Fianna's harmless, if wide, grin and tentatively smiled back at her.

"The Capitol?" he echoed weakly.

Fianna rolled her eyes, turning around to clean up the spare bits of wire, pliers, and other electrical tools she had used to set the signal box. As she worked, Jeanne approached with Charlotte reluctantly trailing behind her. She shot Fianna a cautious glance before turning to her district partner with accusatory eyes. She still seemed as flighty as a bird, though. Dominick helplessly held his hands up in defense of his apparent wrong-doing, smiling hesitantly.

"The Capitol that I come from is different from yours," Fianna said at last to break the silence.

Indeed, it _was_ incredibly silent. The rest of the swampland had the sounds of muffled birdsongs to keep them company, but this far out there were hardly any creatures. It was decidedly eerie, but only to be expected of a manmade arena. Leah glanced about, motioning for Danix to be on the lookout for incoming danger. Not that she expected any tributes to wander this far out, especially so early in the Games, but the tributes were probably the least of their worries. She had seen recordings of all the tricks that the Gamemakers could pull to flush the arena's mutts, normal animals, and tributes into the open. That was honestly what had Leah constantly looking over her shoulder at the moment.

Fianna continued, "It's worn. Tired. Maybe not as bad as the rest of the country, but still torn up from wall to wall. There was this weapon that the rebels launched a few years ago, burned the ground so badly you'll get sick just standing over it."

Leah said nothing. Not everyone volunteered information about their homes willingly and when they did, it was an unspoken rule that no one comment on it, not even in sympathy.

Some of them had been the ones to cause that destruction, after all. Leah looked to the ground, biting her tongue yet again to avoid saying something smart. Although she and Etaín had not known each other at the time, both of them had been involved in that incident on the rebels' side. She knew that Fianna had lost some of her classmates in that very bombing. Danix told her this once, quietly, on the anniversary of the day it happened.

Fianna's voice was remarkably calm even though the memories had to sear her mind with pain. It was a peculiar trait that many people, not just those from the Capitol, had acquired to deal with the hurt. When she turned to the rest of them again, she was still smiling. This time, it seemed genuine.

"That's why I'm here. That's why we're all here," she said. "To stop that from happening. The Panem that you know might not be the best, it might be horrible and cruel, but at least it's whole. And as long as it's whole..."

"We can still fix it," Leah filled in.

After a long silence, Dominick said, "So you really are from the future."

Leah smirked. "And now that we've finally got that established, let's move on with our lives."

"Where are we going?" Charlotte finally said. She looked up at the dense, mossy green canopy above their heads. It seemed safe here, so Leah understood the unspoken concern in her voice. Honestly, Leah was not too enthused about moving on, either - the blindspots were few and far between the closer to the central areas. It would make moving around, especially in a large group, hard.

"To reunite with our dear friends," Danix supplied when it seemed like Leah wouldn't answer her question.

"Kleitos's group should be the closest," Jeanne informed in a low, flat voice.

They moved slowly through the swamp. The fog eventually grew thicker once again, providing them cover and dulling their senses. A double-edged sword, as Danix might have called it.

By the time they heard more than the quiet stream of birdcalls that had been following them for over an hour, it was mid-afternoon, not that they could tell in the dense fog. It had been dim this whole time, the sun only partially visible as a hazy, pale yellow splotch in the sky when they were at the Cornucopia.

An explosive sound from above blasted their ears. It came suddenly, the sound so sharp and clear that it had to be the Gamemaker's doing. Even if they had access to bombs in this arena, Leah and the others had experienced those sounds enough to recognize them immediately. This was different: deeper, clearer, and absent of the sound of destroyed debris that an explosion would normally create.

Charlotte had shrieked, though it was muffled by the hand that Jeanne slapped over her mouth midway. The others had flinched or started, jumping into the air or falling into a defensive stance. Both Dominick and the shell-shocked Charlotte seemed to have a spark of recognition in their eyes quicker than Leah or her comrades.

As the sound faded, Dominick said in a low, unsteady voice, "A cannon. Someone's..."

The boy retreated to Charlotte's side, not quite staring at them with the same distrustful eyes as the girl, but not quite so amicable as before. Jeanne released the brown haired girl and moved quickly to walk side-by-side with Danix at the front of the group. Leah allowed herself a brief grin as she watched their vanguard advance.

"It'd be best not to jump to conclusions," she pointed out to the tributes. "Come, we have to get out of here. Someone had to have heard that scream."

"Don't worry, it's not your fault," Fianna said to Charlotte with a smile. She had sidled up to the girl's side in the commotion, unperturbed by looks she received. "It's a natural reflex."

Leah sighed. "Please don't go on about your science stuff right now. I just want to get as far away from here as possible."

Getting away proved to be somewhat of a challenge. The arrangement of the blindspots was often scrambled and Leah knew that the Gamemakers had caught on by now. She was just surprised that they had yet to throw every calamity they had at their disposal to these areas.

It wasn't long, only about five minutes, until Danix suddenly stopped the group in their tracks. Once they slowed and their hearts stopped beating too loudly in their ears, everyone could hear the distinct sounds of conversation beyond the wall of fog.

As they got closer, they could discern the words.

Fianna's face brightened and she broke into a run, startling Dominick, who she had been walking beside. He tried in vain to catch the auburn haired girl before she ran off to, he might have assumed, her death.

Leah let it slide. The 80th Hunger Games did not have any jabberjays in its arena, as the birds did not do well in this climate and had a hard time catching the voices of anyone clearly enough to imitate them.

There was no mistaking their comrades' voices for anyone else's - and Leah sincerely doubted that the Gamemakers could imitate the relationships that had been built between them for at least two years and counting. They certainly wouldn't be able to fabricate some of the more...colorful of their teammates.

_"Oh, this is so gross...ew, ew, ew..."_ a smooth male voice whined. _"Couldn't you have been neater? Ugh."_

_"It worked, didn't it?"_ the higher pitched voice of another boy chimed. Leah smirked as they got closer and the two figures sitting on the ground came into sharper focus. "You don't have to bother, y'know. I'm okay!"

"Well, _I _care if I have to be around you for the rest of this mission," said the first boy matter-of-factually. "Seriously-"

"Fionn!" Fianna exclaimed, dashing into the narrow clearing. "And Azure! Did everything go well? Wait, all that blood - did you two get hurt?"

Charlotte and Dominick immediately recoiled, keeping as far away from the newcomers as Danix and Jeanne would let them. Not that Leah could really blame them. She sighed and placed her hands on her hips.

"Alright, what happened you two?" she drawled. "Explain."

Fionn laughed nervously, his murky reddish brown eyes flickering to the two tributes behind Leah and back to the blood-stained boy who he had been attempting to clean.

"After we set up the signal jammer, we started moving towards the rendezvous point," Fionn began as he went back to his task of plucking white shards and lumpy red and grey bits out of Azure's hair and off his clothes. The poor tributes looked a little pale. "Our place was a little crowded with mutts, so we got separated from Kleitos and Kallias while trying to kill them. Then we ran into a tribute."

"He was huge!" chimed the petite Azure, whose skinny and waif-like stature belied his true strength. The dark brown haired boy was smiling in a manner that made him look younger than age of seventeen years. Even Leah could admit that he would have been considered cute for a teenager if he wasn't splattered in someone else's gore. "But really bad with an axe."

"Anyway," Fionn said quickly, before Azure could gleefully jump into the details. "He attacked us and Azure defeated him - and we ran like hell before the Gamemakers could find us. But we're probably still being tracked."

Danix suddenly spoke up, "It is as Fionn says, my friends. We must not linger for too long, lest we become the hunted."

"In Danix-short-hand, that means run like hell," Fianna supplied helpfully as she hovered over her pale, white-haired brother who she had started poking as if he would suddenly fall over from having a near-death experience.

Fionn was honestly the one person whose appearance alone had freaked Leah out for a good two months when they first met. She had seen children like Azure before, who could only sustain themselves by smiling in the face of death, and she had seen the regretful types like Danix who only fought by necessity. She had seen the cold and calculating types and the ones who were so angry at the world that their hostility was practically visible.

Fionn was just different. His albino appearance made him look less like the human beings Leah was used to seeing - and his strained, apparently happy smile made him look like a grotesque painting. At least they had given him some of those weird drug cocktails to get his eyes a relatively normal color - or else his pinkish-red eyes would have given them all sorts of trouble starting with that creepy look it gave him.

Azure waved Fionn's worrying hands away. The seventeen-year-old stood and stretched, stopping only to wipe a few streaks of blood away from his eyes and mouth.

"I'm fine, Fin-Fin!" His smile, directed solely at Fionn, made the older boy look away with an obstinate pout.

"Stop calling me that! My name is Fionn!" he hissed unenthusiastically. "You should stop being so reckless. You nearly gave me a heart attack back there..."

"You should start _walking_," Leah snapped as she tried to steer the group away from the blood stained grass and towards the next rendezvous point - which was actually very far away from this point. "Danix, what's our status?"

"We all seemed to be uninjured-"

"No," she sighed. "About the mutts?"

"Oh! Well, we mustn't let those Gamemakers intimidate us with their manmade creatures! After all, the wise imposes his will upon his enemy, but does not let the same be done to him!*"

"Uh-huh..." Leah nodded absently. "Whatever that means, I guess you can't tell if anything's following us."

"Animals are good at concealing themselves," Jeanne said quietly.

The navigators fell into a familiar formation only disturbed by the extra two people who were now traveling at the center of the group, the safest from harm should something come lunging at them out of the fog. It was growing dimmer, and according to Leah's watch, it was nearly five in the afternoon. She had no doubt that the other two - Kleitos and Kallias - had survived their encounter with the mutts. But it was looking like they might not meet up until tomorrow or the day after.

"I swear, it was like a huge cat with teeth the size of my forearm!" Azure insisted as he trotted alongside Fionn and Fianna, the two siblings equally at ease walking around without weapons of any sort. The tributes, Charlotte holding a thin knife and Dominick holding a crossbow of some sort, walked alongside them quietly chatting about their home District. Anything to keep their nerves from killing them when nothing was even happening.

"And you're okay?" Fianna demanded of her brother. "You should tell me if your heart's still beating really fast or something. You might be having a heart attack."

Fionn's pleasant sounding laugh filled the terse atmosphere. "I'm really okay, Fianna. Seriously, I'm not going to break that easily. C'mon, have more faith in me! Azure, stop encouraging her!"

Azure smiled serenely, his blues eyes bright with mirth. "You did look rather startled. You were clinging to my arm awfully hard."

"That's just because _I _only have an old, regular handgun and I've never actually used it to kill anything," Fionn protested. "You're strong. And reliable. So I hid a little, it's not like I'm going to have a mental or physical breakdown because a giant cat wanted to eat us."

"Do not worry, my friend!" Danix said from the rear of the group where he was walking with Jeanne. "I believe you!"

Dominick turned to the four chatting away after a time, seemingly too curious to hold his tongue for much longer. "You have guns? Those weren't in the Cornucopia, were they?"

He sounded a little worried and for good reason. Leah called out from the front of the procession, "We brought them from our future. Of course, these are old models. Can't let the Capitol steal our tech and copy it and all."

Most of them did not have their firearms out, though, because they had a limited supply of ammunition and no way of resupplying. Leah let her hand hover above the one on her hip, the familiar weight comfortable and reassuring at her side.

They were about to set up camp for the night in another densely wooded area, sans swamp water, when they heard an ear-piercing scream break through the still and humid nighttime air.

Leah grimaced, hesitated for a moment, and promptly pulled everyone to their feet and moved to the front of their loose formation. Stupid humanitarian orders like "save everyone you can" would be the death of her.

Everyone groaned, even those most used to moving around. Their stamina was just about shot for the night - they needed at least a few hours of sleep if they were going to be anywhere near half their full strength.

"If we don't take care of it, it might come for us next," she pointed out. "Danix and Jeanne, take the front. Azure, right flank. I'll take left. The rest of you, watch our backs."

She glanced at Fionn, whose white hair stood out like a ghostly patch of fire in the night. Groaning, she glanced around. Spotting the rough blanket that stuck out of Charlotte's backpack, she reached over and pulled it out without stopping to ask for it.

"Fionn, wear this." He took it gingerly and tossed it over his head, making a makeshift hood. You stick out like-"

They were moving quickly through the trees. Their feet began to hit the soft, muddy ground of the swampland again and that was when everything went downhill.

Danix and Jeanne gave a warning shout before a person stumbled out from the fog and shadows of the twisted trees. The person had somewhat long dark hair, but that was all Leah was able to discern before the sleek, muscular forms leapt out of the fog and shadows.

"I _told_ you they were giant cats!" Azure exclaimed, though he sounded like he was still smiling even as he dodged one of the beasts and made a dash for their most vulnerable members, drawing his gun. A shot fired off, illuminating the big cats' bright dagger-like teeth for a moment before an enraged, deafening roar of pain echoed through the forest.

"_No_ guns!" Leah shouted, moving forward and drawing a long dagger from the sheath hidden in her boot.

It was chaos, but chaos Leah was used to - she waited for a precious moment until she could discern where Azure was - and she lunged forward.

Fionn and Fianna had drawn Charlotte, Dominick, and the apparently injured person who had collided into their group, further away from the fighting. Jeanne and Danix, much more used to fighting together even in the dark, had no trouble taking out the big cats. It was taking a long time, though, since all they were doing was kicking the stupid things.

"Don't get in my way!" Leah hissed at Azure, who had suddenly leapt in front of her to surprise the beast in front of her - but she had nearly plunged her dagger in his shoulder as well. Though she couldn't see much more than his slim form slipping around and stabbing the mutt in the neck, she had a feeling he was laughing.

One more stab to the eye was enough to send it running, probably off to its death. There had only been three of the things - the first was still writhing on the ground thanks to Azure's first shot. The last one ran off with one last kick from the duo to Leah's left.

When the dust of the fighting settled, Leah forced everyone to start moving away from the scene before they stopped and took inventory.

"Anyone hurt?" she asked first. Fianna stepped forward.

"This girl is," she motioned to the dark haired girl who had brought the cats to them. "By the way, we should move out of sight - I think the Gamemakers might send some cameras here. They probably saw us fighting."

Leah nodded. She turned to the girl first, who was thin but didn't seem to be an absolute stick. She had kinky black hair and dark eyes, but that was about all Leah could make out in this light. "We'll try treating your wounds after we settle down for the night. Can we get a name?"

The girl had a low, naturally quiet voice like Jeanne. "Amara Winslow."

"Where are you hurt?" Fianna asked. The girl pointed to her upper arm where a claw or fang must have grazed her - it was running thick with blood. Fianna grabbed the edge of the blanket-cloak that was still wrapped over her brother's head and ripped a part of it off to use as a makeshift bandage.

"Anyone else hurt?" Leah demanded, turning to the members of their crew who wouldn't give her a headache. Or less of one. Everyone shook their heads. Fionn seemed to be fretting over Azure, but knowing that kid, he was just fine. "Fionn, stop being such a girl, he's _fine_. Now let's go. Hurry, hurry! I don't know about you, but I don't want to get caught by another of those stupid mutts again."

Before anyone could say anything else, Leah started shoving the able-bodied people forward by their shoulders. As they were leaving, Danix walked up to her silently - she nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard his voice. But she didn't have the heart to yell at him like she normally would.

"You are hurt, are you not, Sister?" he said low enough so that no one else would hear. Leah lifted a hand to her side, grateful that he kept it quiet. No doubt the others - especially Fianna - would fawn over her endlessly if they knew she had gotten a little scratch. And it was all Azure's fault! If only he hadn't thrown her off with his erratic movements...

But she knew better. She should have immediately been able to compensate for that factor, but instead she had treated it like any other battle, thinking her partner would actually take her presence into consideration.

"It's nothing," she lied. It only burned a little, but she knew that was just the adrenaline speaking. "Don't worry, Ninja Boy, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. The devil is gonna have to rip me out of this world with his own two hands if he wants me."

* * *

Yes, I did kill one person off - Darren Seucres - I made him up for this role because there aren't enough tributes. There are tons and tons of characters, hopefully it isn't too confusing. I'll try to distinguish between them more in the future.

As a note, the results of the poll are in (thank you to the 4 people who voted) and so I started a new story called "The Timetrade Side Stories" which contains, well, side stories including backstories and character interactions that occurred before the events of _The Timetrade_ started. Check it out if you don't mind some minor spoilers.


	4. Echoes

**The Timetrade**

Authors Notes: SYOT is still open! I need more tributes! Especially Careers. This is the reason why I haven't been able to write much about them.

**Special Announcement:** A new story is in the works and I am taking submissions. I won't post an official chapter for a while, so the readers of this story get first dibs...see the end of the chapter (and my profile) for details.

There is also a new poll on my profile. Go vote if you are so inclined.

* * *

**Chapter Four: Echoes**

The dense fog over the arena dispersed when Capitol's anthem and that day's death count were announced. The sky, for just five or six minutes, shone a perfectly dark indigo hue spotted with tiny white specks of stars. The holographic image of the day's three meager victims hovered above their heads - an older boy from Five, and two young girls from Eleven and Twelve. Their young faces, impeccably groomed and styled modestly, were a far cry from the biannual casualty announcements that peppered their future.

Jeanne remembered when she heard her parents' names called out in the roughly constructed town square of her hometown, the place once called District 4. She had been considered one of the lucky ones - they had been able to give her the slightly warped remains of her father's dog tags. Most never even had that small comfort. The incendiary bombs usually wiped all traces of those caught in the blast into oblivion.

Other times, soldiers made it off the battlefield only to die of blood loss, festering wounds and infections, or disease in the emptied remains of a building used as a hospital. Jeanne had seen the twisted, bleeding faces of children as young as these tributes and lied to their faces, telling them that they weren't going to die. She didn't remember every single one she had seen, even if she had promised them on their deathbed that she would never forget them.

Even though those three tributes had died, she felt oddly distant like the day her older sister tried to explain to her that their parents had passed on and were now resting in Heaven. For Jeanne, not seeing those bodies meant something substantial. She spared a moment to clutch at the half rusted dog tags in an inner pocket of her coat before returning to her duty of distributing their limited water supply to everyone present.

The anthem's tune rang clearly through their ears, dying away after the stream of images faded. The fog began to roll back into the air just minutes later with droplets of moisture clinging to their skin, teasing their parched mouths.

"Uwah, it's so pretty!" Azure cried out softly, pointing to the stars and the blistering white moon that hung in the sky.

"I don't remember the last time I saw it like this!" Fianna gaped.

Jeanne turned her head to the sky. Now that the holograms were gone, all of the navigators present had stopped to gaze at the perfectly whole ceiling of blue above their heads. They continued staring at that sight until it faded before their eyes, as if they half believed that it would disappear in an instant and such a thing was too good to be true.

When she returned to the reality set in front of them, she handed the two tributes from District 7 the canteen of water that they were passing around. The boy accepted it, gratefulness clear in his low voice, but he handed it to the girl, Charlotte, before he took a drink for himself.

"Ladies first," he said half-jokingly. Jeanne took a seat on the ground in front of them, tucking her legs close to her chest as everyone around them began to settle down. The two district partners turned to her, seemingly looking at her as if she would bite them if they asked her a question.

"What," she muttered with a sharp yawn that she tried to muffle behind her hand. She jolted upon feeling a sharp jab at her side, only to discover that it was Danix trying to get comfortable behind her. With a playful shove, she shifted around until she was sitting closer to Charlotte, the girl with light brown hair tied into a ponytail.

The girl's quiet breath fluttered as she asked, "Is your sky really so different from ours?"

"About your...world's...sky, you said it was 'fracturing'. What does it look like?" Dominick followed up, leaning forward, genuine curiosity in his tone.

Jeanne blinked slowly at their questions, shifting her gaze to watch her comrades try to find decent spots to sleep. Leah was at the far end of their tiny alcove, since she had the first watch with Danix. Fianna was trying to clean Amara's wounded arm with the limited amount of water that they had access to at the moment. All Jeanne could hear from them were the occasional quiet hisses of pain.

"It's odd, even for us," she said in a voice that could pass for a whisper. "I remember when the sky was whole; it looked just like the one you have here. But now, it looks like a sheet of broken glass - there's nothing but black behind it. They call it the Void."

Azure and Fionn were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, Fionn's pure white hair obscured by the shadow of the blanket tossed over his head. As far as Jeanne could tell, Azure was already fast asleep, his head resting on Fionn's shoulder.

Jeanne shifted her weight on the bumpy floor. "What about you two?" she asked quietly. "What does your home look like?"

"What does it matter? It's not like we're ever going to be able to go back," Charlotte said, though not in the most caustic manner. Her voice was bitter, sure, but Jeanne heard the uncertainty hidden behind the biting words. She smiled despite herself.

"Where you come from matters," she replied, thinking of how just a few hours ago Etaín had told them the same thing. "Even if it's not paradise, you must have some good memories of it. It's good to think about sometimes even if it makes you sad."

The other two were quiet for a moment. By this time, Fianna had done all she could for Amara's arm. Leaving the silent girl to her own musings, Fianna retreated to her brother's side, curling up so that he was stuck between her and Azure.

"You guys can't go back to your own time, can you," Dominick stated. Though it was hard for Jeanne to make out his features in the dark, she could hear the realization dawn upon him as he spoke. There was something else in his voice, too, something darker and sympathetic. "Even though you say that your home is so terrible, you speak of it fondly."

Jeanne sighed, leaning against the tree at her back. She opened her eyes and could almost see the lively fish market where she once lived and roamed as a child. The sea, a deep blue that was almost black in color, had still produced fish until just a few years ago. She still remembered the salty tang of the seawater and the pungent smell of fish in the air.

"What did District 7 specialize in?" Jeanne asked at last. "I don't quite remember."

"Wood," Charlotte provided, "nothing but wood and carpentry. Seven is pretty big because of the forest."

"What do you do for jobs?" Jeanne wondered aloud. There were still trees in the future, of course, but the need for an entire District dedicated to lumber had fallen away after a few decades of deforestation. Even District 4, which had long since been populated by fishermen, had been forced to find other work after the seas became leeched in black.

"Many of us just help cut the trees down or process them for shipment. My old job was to help chop them down," Dominick said. His voice, though, was strained. Maybe the hardship of their lives was simply too close in the past for them to look back on those years fondly, Jeanne considered. "It's hard work. But I had to do it because I have a lot of siblings."

"And I made flutes and little trinkets out of spare wood," Charlotte said. "They don't sell for much, but it's just me back home so it's not like I had a choice when I was younger and couldn't do any other work."

"You can make such a thing out of wood?" Jeanne said curiously. The only instruments she had ever seen were metal whistles and the silver stringed device that a friend of Kleitos and Kallias always carried around.

Charlotte nodded her head. "It takes practice, of course."

"I always liked the ones you made," Dominick said wistfully. Jeanne could imagine him smiling to himself in the dark. He seemed to be the type who naturally smiled at any time like Fionn and Azure, except his fair smiles were more convincing than her friends'. What secrets were hiding beneath that facade were unknown to her, but Jeanne was never one to pry, and so she left the matter alone and let him talk. "I know someone who bought one. She plays it often during lunch break at school. It's a little..."

"Rough of a tune," Charlotte filled in. "I know. But without better wood I can't get rid of that sound..."

"But I like it," Dominick persisted. "It gives it a little life. I wouldn't like it as much if it didn't have that whistle. If not, it'd just sound like something from the Capitol."

Jeanne listened to them chatter softly to each other until she was drifting off to sleep. It reminded her of the nights she spent with her siblings, all four of them crammed into the small bedroom of their rickety home. Her older and brother would always mutter to each other in the dark like Dominick and Charlotte were, talking about meaningless things and teasing each other gently.

That night, she dreamed of the ocean.

* * *

Rowan knew that their tentative alliance wouldn't last for long. It was comprised mostly of Careers and the tributes from the other Districts who they saw fit to threaten into compliance. With the fog this thick and the very likely chance that the Careers would turn on them the second those strangers calling themselves time travelers were out of the picture, most of the tributes from the outer Districts had already fled or died trying.

Rowan felt the pull of sleep tugging at his body, but forced himself to stay awake as he and the District 3 boy crept away from the clearing where the Careers had set up camp. The last embers of the fire they had started crackled weakly in the fog, wisps of dark smoke disappearing into the night.

Behind them, Kalypso had grabbed one of the backpacks they took from the Cornucopia and shoved it in their direction without meeting Rowan's eyes. He nodded gratefully at her, ignoring how Braylon, the fifteen-year-old District 3 boy, skittishly inched away from her. Rowan's hands brushed hers for just a moment as he took the backpack and he could just barely see the coldness of her blue eyes by the dying light of the fire.

"I'll say I fell asleep and you slipped away," she said in a near silent whisper.

Rowan had to ask, "Why?"

She was quiet for a moment, but unlike most girls Rowan had ever known, she didn't give off a sense of vulnerability standing alone with her back to the other Careers. Even though she was letting them leave, her eyes were still the same cold blue as when he first met her in the training center. Her strong back was still and straight. She was just the type of person Rowan had always hated - even he had been fooled by her innocent act until she snapped at one of the younger District 12 tributes who got in her way on the second day of training.

He had been prepared to stay far away from her, silently hating her like all the other Careers who relished in the thought of murder, if not for that night he found her crying by herself.

They were all just the Capitol's pawns, he realized that night. Even Kalypso, who cried because she felt as if she _had_ to win the Games but was just realizing how hard that would be, was just another one of their pawns.

And then the Gamemakers threw this extra element into the Games - kill all of the time travelers or else all of them would perish and there wouldn't be a Victor this year - and suddenly Rowan found himself following Kalypso and her Career pack.

"The other Careers wanted to kill you guys in your sleep when the shifts changed. But that's no fun at all," Kalypso replied at last, a cruel smile alighting on her lips. Rowan didn't flinch, even though Braylon was mumbling about leaving before she pulled out a dagger and stabbed them in the throat. "It'll be a pretty boring Game if we just bashed your heads in while you were sleeping. So go, before the others wake up."

"Thanks," Rowan said with a nod, maintaining eye contact with her for as long as he was able to before the darkness of the night concealed her from his sight. Soon he and Braylon were running at an even pace, careful not to make too much of a ruckus. There were still two other tributes from the outer Districts with the Career pack, but there wasn't much they could do for them now.

They were running for a little bit when Braylon finally spoke. "You seem like a smart guy. You can't tell me that you really trust her though, right? I mean, did you even see that smile? It looked like she wanted to rip us open and eat our innards. She's pretty, but I don't think that's exactly worth it."

Rowan shook his head and shifted the backpack from one shoulder to the other. "She's not the most pleasant person," he agreed, "but Careers are human, too. Just like us. In any other world do you think they would all be psychopathic murders? In the end..."

_In the end it's all the Capitol's fault_, was what he wanted to say but knew he could not, for fear of the Gamemakers bombarding them with mutts or natural disasters in retribution for speaking out against them. Braylon looked unconvinced, but said nothing in return.

He never thought that he'd be saying something to defend the Careers. Maybe the Games really were making him go insane. He wondered what everyone back home thought of him now - were they confused? Angry?

He knew that he would never know the answer. And strangely, he was alright with it.

* * *

Kallias had once gone a week straight with most of his body coated in the blood of his comrades who had been blown to bits beside him or died of blood loss while writhing in his arms. Past experience told him that if he didn't get this giant cat blood off his arms before the night was over, he would be practically dyed in the stuff for the rest of the Games. It smelled terrible no matter how many times he was exposed to it and to top it all off, it made him look like a psychopath.

He was crouched over a shallow pool of half-stagnant water with Kleitos standing next to him with his arms crossed impatiently. He was completely opposed to the idea, as being near any water source put them at risk for being spotted by the Capitol's cameras, but Kallias had been adamant about cleaning himself. He was not about to be stuck smelling like a rotting chunk of meat for the rest of the mission.

The water smelled of plants and mold, but Kallias just held his breath and tried to clean as much of the blood, fur, and bones away as possible. Neither of them spoke, not willing to risk causing extra noise in case the Gamemakers altered the effects of the silencing fog.

The horde of gigantic cat mutts that had been chasing them either fell to their deaths in the deep bog they left behind about two miles to the west or were killed by Kleitos and Kallias. The battle had been long and hard; Kleitos had received a shallow cut on his thigh that wouldn't stop bleeding and Kallias could practically hear his muscles scream as he repeatedly blocked the big cats' powerful blows.

Kallias looked upwards, but the sky was dark and grey with clouds and fog. He could barely make out Kleitos's form against the darkness. They had tried to dress the wound, but it had been getting dark by the time they managed to find a safe zone, away from the Gamemaker's cameras.

"How's your leg?" Kallias asked quietly. "I can try to..."

"No," Kleitos said shortly. He shifted his weight onto his injured leg and hissed quietly. "The water's not clean. It'll only make it worse."

Kallias nodded to himself and stood, shaking the loose droplets of water from his arms. He tried to concentrate on moving forward through the thick trunks of the swampland trees instead of the images of the past that flickered before his eyes.

The only smell worse than blood and rotting meat was the scent of an infected, festering wound. The smell of rotten flesh on a person who was still alive - Kallias knew that the dead limb would send poisonous blood to the rest of the body if it wasn't severed. He nearly vomited just thinking about it. He could almost taste the scent on his tongue, fresh and pungent.

"Kallias," said Kleitos sharply. His head snapped to attention immediately at the cold alarm in his partner's voice. That wasn't the voice of someone trying to snap him out of a flashback. It delved into a dangerous growl. "Someone's out there."

Kallias drew the dagger at his hip. The gun was there, too, but he knew that he couldn't use it here. He fell into a crouch, ready to kill another ten giant cats even though his body ached for rest if not the bliss of sleep.

"Who's there?" he called out slowly, just in case it wasn't a mutated lion in the bushes. However, he received no answer. Cautiously, making sure Kleitos was located behind and little to the side of him, he parted the bushes half expecting to see giant fangs the size of his forearm.

Instead, he found a girl crouched in the shadows, her eyes wide. She was small, but didn't look like the youngest in the Game, and she leapt to her feet immediately when she realized that her hiding place had been compromised. She had pale skin and her hair was in a bun, but he couldn't discern any other features in this lighting.

"I don't want to kill you," she said quickly, holding her weaponless hands up to show them. "Please believe me."

Kallias did not relax, even when he felt Kleitos lay a hand on his shoulder and try to pull him backwards. He wasn't stupid enough to try and work the blade out of his hand, though. The girl continued to stare at him imploringly. It wasn't that Kallias doubted her words - even if she did want to kill them it would be hard for her to win against the two of them while she was cornered.

"Remember our orders," Kleitos said lightly. "Save who you can."

The girl's face lit up. Kallias couldn't tell if it was a farce or not.

Kallias shook his head. "There's no one to enforce those orders anymore. And if we're to survive this thing..."

"We didn't come here to murder everyone in the arena," Kleitos said in a hard voice. Notably, he made no further move to stop Kallias. Not that he could, even though he was taller, especially with that injured leg.

"We have to get rid of them because they know now. They know what will change the future - if we kill the target and let the others go free, one of them can still make the time pieces! We didn't come here to eliminate one threat only to create another!"

Kallias breathed evenly, the grip on his dagger tight but not painfully so. He didn't stare the girl in the eyes.

"Kallias, stop it!"

"I don't have a choice," he said to himself. _ I don't have a choice._

_Is that why I watched everyone I loved die? Is that why my friends' blood is on my hands?_

_Once, I would have done anything to kill my enemies. The Capitol - kill all of the Capitolites, those greedy, evil demons who steal all that lives and is dear to us - they told us that the Capitol was our enemy. If we didn't want them to kill us, we had to kill them. It was simple. I wasn't happy living like that, but I was alive and that was all that mattered._

_But you gave me a choice. The only person in all the world who told me that there is more than one way to live - I'm sorry -_

_But I don't have a choice._

"I won't take any chances. We must make sure that future never comes to pass no matter what we have to sacrifice."

* * *

Sorry for the long delay! This chapter is a bit disjointed...I'm hoping to improve in the next one. I wrote the first part a while ago and when I went back to it, it was hard to pick up from that spot.

**Special Announcement:** I am planning a new story. Rest assured, it won't be posted until after _The Timetrade_ is done and after it has been completed and edited. It's in the planning/character submission stage. Like this story, which had a limited amount of spots for the time travelers, this new story will have only seven slots open, so it can get competitive if enough people are interested.

The detailed rules (and they are weird rules...) are located on my profile page, like aways. PM me with questions and submissions (and you'll probably have some questions for me...I'll be surprised if you don't).

Basically, the story is about a group of ten who were raised by a Capitol scientist from childhood to be highly loyal soldiers. They were originally from the Districts, but grew up together and think of each other as siblings. They are loyal to the scientist who raised them, a woman named Astra Morrigan. As the rebels attack the Capitol (the events from the Mockingjay), Morrigan decides not to send them to battle and tells them to live. But the rebels, who have won the rebellion, find out about these ten "experiments" and have to decide what to do with these brainwashed kids.


	5. Sacrifices

**The Timetrade**

Authors Notes: As mentioned in the last chapter, my new story is in the planning stages and I'm really excited to write that one. There are two spots left, one boy and one girl, if anyone is interested in submitting a character (or a second one, I'm open to those too). As for this chapter, it's a little short, but I finally got all of the Careers! Thanks for the wonderful characters, everyone.

And here's another special announcement: since everyone voted for me to create a blog, I've been working on one for the past few days. Is there any content you would like to see? Anything at all? (I'll probably post weird updates while I'm writing the new story, if you're interested in that kind of thing). Also, if you don't mind me disclosing who created which characters, let me know - I'll take no answer as a "no".

The link will appear on my profile soon.

* * *

**Chapter Five: Sacrifices**

Kallias remembered the first person he killed.

He looked much the same as this girl with frightened eyes and hands that shook as she tried to reach for the sleek Capitol crafted dagger hanging uncomfortably from her hip. From the way she held the weapon, he could tell that she had never done more than use it to cook before.

Kallias remembered the first person he killed because that person had been one of his friends. It had not been an accident, either.

Kleitos made no further attempts to stop him from lunging forward with the last of the adrenaline still pulsing through his veins, even though the girl cried out for him to help her. The short plea, which fell on deaf ears, morphed into the distinct choking gurgle of someone who had a blade in her throat and was still trying to talk, not having yet realized that she was injured. Kallias allowed his dagger to stay in place for a moment as he caught hold of her weapon, prying out of her tough grip and tossing it behind him.

When he leapt backwards, taking his dagger with him, he could feel the flecks of blood splatter his face. Her dying cries lifted weakly into the canopy, and choked by the fog, went unnoticed by all except for the two young men standing in front of her corpse and the Capitol's hidden microphones.

Kallias turned away with a disgruntled noise of disgust as he brought a hand to his face, brushing at the blood on his cheek. It was still warm to the touch and no doubt was splattered across his chest and pants as well. Maybe he should have aimed for the heart instead? He leaned down to wipe the blade of the dagger against the grass. He left the shiny Capitol one on the ground. It was probably bugged.

"You're going to have to live with that, on your clothes," Kleitos said. The slightest hint of a pause in his words was all the indication Kallias needed to understand the alternate meaning behind his warning. He simply nodded, standing and walking over to Kleitos in order to help the taller man as they limped away from the scene. The hidden cameras and microphones might have already caught the commotion.

They heard the muffled burst of a cannon firing in the air above them just as they were leaving. It was unnaturally loud compared to all of the other sounds they heard throughout the day from distant parts of the swamp.

Kallias could not possibly remember every person whose death he had caused. There were often times when all he had to do was pull the trigger and someone would fall across a long and distant field. If he saw their eyes, though, he tended to recall something about them.

Maybe it would be the color of their eyes, their hair, or a charm they were wearing. Maybe it would be their battle prowess, the deep sadness in their expressions, or the overwhelming anger and anguish one might feel before death.

Like his friend who had pleaded for him not to deliver the finishing blow, he knew that he wouldn't forget those eyes. Kallias could have spared him - _both of them_ \- he could have let him off with a warning not to steal from a _friend_ again, but he chose not to do so. Rather, he felt that he had no choice but to kill him at the time.

_If I let him go now, he'll steal from me again. If I spare him, won't he just stab me in the back later? Someone who can steal from their friend isn't to be trusted._

With the reasoning firmly entrenched in his mind, Kallias had thrust a rusty kitchen knife into his friend's heart. He watched the life leave the other boy's eyes, stood in silence as he cursed Kallias with his last breaths, and he stayed standing next to that cooling corpse for a good half a day before someone noticed the stench and their absence and dragged him away.

He didn't want to return to those times. He could feel Kleitos squeeze his shoulder with his larger hand, not out of pain or to get a better grip.

"I didn't have a choice though," Kallias repeated in a low, empty voice. "We made a promise that we'd change our world. No matter what it takes we have to succeed - for the sake of all those who died before us."

"Will you kill all of the tributes in this arena to keep the time pieces' creation a secret? Then what - the Gamemakers, the officials, the president, and the scientists who they will undoubtedly tell about us? Who's next, Kallias?" Kleitos asked, though he was not antagonistic in the least. "What if the whole world knew?"

Kallias didn't answer him because Kleitos already knew the answer.

* * *

Kalypso had _no _clue what she was thinking last night. Apparently neither did her temporary allies, Regina from One and Lethe from Four.

"You _let _them get away?" Regina said dubiously, green eyes fixed on her intently. "Because you know, they were just so _tiny_ that they could just slip away into the night without you seeing."

"I did not _let_ them get away. I fell asleep for _a minute_," Kalypso spat, holding her head high and and making sure to let the anger seep into her voice. It was the very same voice she used to ward away the other girls her age who wanted to volunteer this year. This was the voice she used to address her twin sister Aphrodite right before the two got into a tussle that might or might not result in drawing blood, missing clumps of hair, or something equally nasty.

The other girl backed away warily, as if expecting Kalypso to lunge and bite her, but her eyes held their ground. They were not as hard and concentrated as Kalypso and Iros's blue ones, the green in them quieter in intensity. Her arms were crossed, but to her credit she didn't shudder or flinch too much even though Kalypso was glaring at her.

"Oh come on, let's just calm down," Iros, the male from One, said with a cheerful smile only marred by the long, fine scar running from his eyebrow to his cheekbone. "Mistakes happen. Besides, it wouldn't be any fun if we just killed all the little lambs in their sleep. Gotta give the viewers something exciting to watch, right?"

Kalypso latched onto his words immediately. "That's right," she said with a sharp, self-righteous nod. "The viewers don't want to see us just stabbing people in their sleep. We'll look like complete cowards and it takes all the fun out of the chase - they can't hurt us even if they manage to get their hands on some weapons, so where's the harm in having them run off on their own?"

"I thought that killing them while they were sleeping would be a lot safer, but when you put it that way, it does sound a bit better," said the girl from Four, Lethe. The other three turned to stare at her, but were more interested in staring each other down than address her air-headed comments that had been tagging along after them for the past week. She had immediately latched onto them, but her clumsy and pretty ways were more than a little out of place here. Still, they let her stick around for now.

That alone was its own kind of entertainment.

Kalypso rolled her eyes. "Majority rules, now let's get a move on. Another cannon went off last night while you were all so soundly sleeping. It sounded pretty far away."

"So it wasn't your District partner who did it," Regina mused. "We aren't that far from the Cornucopia. Maybe it was one of those 'guests'? Some to think of it, they never told us if the cannons go off for them, too..."

"It could have just been someone getting caught in one of the arena's traps," Iros pointed out, still trying to act the role of mediator. Kalypso could see the twitch in his hand that betrayed the calming words he was trying to pull off, though. "We fought off a few of those bird mutts back there. They seem pretty nasty."

"This fog is impossible to see through," Kalypso agreed reluctantly, glad that they had moved on from the topic of her supposedly falling asleep and letting Rowan and Braylon slip away from them. "Knowing those weaklings from the lower Districts, when those mutts jump out of the fog, they won't even have time to blink before they're dead."

* * *

Hayden was able to keep a smile on his face when he was reaped, but just barely. When his friends came to say their goodbyes, he even managed to crack a few jokes to cheer them up. It didn't matter that _he _was the one who needed the cheering up.

It was only once he was alone on the train going to the Capitol did he allow himself to face the reality that one small slip of paper had thrust him into just hours ago.

Even though it was a situation where he almost wanted to just curl up and scream and cry, he didn't allow himself to stay depressed for long. He might have not had a real family back in District 8, but he had his friends who cried for him and cared for him. He had promised them that he would at least try to win. It had been years since anyone from their District became a Victor, but even he couldn't imagine just sitting there and letting the Careers cut him down.

And then there was the matter of his District partner.

His District partner was twelve. A little girl who was frightened and had tears streaming down her face when she was reaped. She would stand no chance, they knew, and so he had no comforting words to offer her when they first sat down for dinner. He spoke to the escorts, the stony-faced Capitol trainers who were there to temporarily replace the Victors who had been executed after the failed rebellion.

Over the next few days, he gave her comforting smiles, and told some jokes even though their prospects were rather grim.

He didn't know what he was doing. "We'll try to stick together in the arena," he'd promised her like an idiot. The Capitol trainer even flashed him a raised eyebrow for that comment.

He would have enough trouble looking after himself, let alone a young girl whose only strengths were personality-related or otherwise relatively useless in the arena.

When they had emerged before the Cornucopia, he had been relieved to see Mica nearby. He thought that they could run for it, maybe make it out alive, and then those strange people appeared out of the blue.

It would have been easy to take some supplies from the Cornucopia since the Careers had simply gathered together at the base of the metal structure, talking out a plan but not attacking anyone yet. The Gamemakers had assured them that this was "part of the Game" after all.

"This is a new twist that we have been waiting to announce until right before the Game!" the intercom had cried. "It is highly recommended that tributes cooperate to catch the ones calling themselves the 'time travelers', but going solo is okay, of course! How will our tributes fare when they finally have to turn against each other? Now, may the Games begin and may the odds be ever in your favor!"

Hayden considered it for all of ten seconds before he realized that the Careers with their haughty smirks and inviting words only intended on gathering their competition close to them in order to strike an easy blow later. He had sprinted over to where Mica was walking towards the Cornucopia and dragged her into the relative safety of the trees before she could do more than utter a few words of protest.

It was their second day in the arena and Hayden had no idea what to do next. All of the water in the arena was pungent and murky and he couldn't exactly just catch anything with his bare hands. They had found a few bushes with some sparse edible berries on them, but little else.

Mica had fallen asleep curled up against his side, but even though they were awake, she looked even more tired than yesterday. He glanced over his shoulder at her in concern. He was a little unsteady on his feet from hunger, having gotten used to the rich food in the Capitol in the short time they stayed there, but it wasn't really affecting him too deeply yet.

"We'll find something," he promised her. He didn't tell her that they were heading back to the Cornucopia. Maybe they could get something, anything, even if the Careers were guarding it. If anything, he could try to talk them into it.

It had been kind of stupid to run away yesterday, but Hayden hadn't known what to do. He knew that he absolutely couldn't trust the Careers not to stab them in the back while they slept at night - but they needed supplies, at least some way to get clean water.

Water. They would die in a few short days without it. Or maybe they wouldn't have even that short amount of time. They would prove easy prey for the mutts if they were weakened from thirst. Just licking the morning dew off the blades of grass wasn't enough to sustain even the tiny Mica.

Hayden pushed onward. He could see the faint glint of the Cornucopia in the distance. Mica trudged along behind him, glancing nervously around them every few seconds. She was a small thing, still rail-thin from never having had enough to eat in her twelve years of life. Her brown hair was tied into a ponytail, swinging back and forth as she walked.

"Tell me more about your friends and family," Hayden implored as they walked. He could hear her make a startled noise, but she was less reluctant to talk to him now than she was when they first met. He could practically hear a small smile in her voice.

"Sometimes, if mom makes a little extra money one month, she'll buy me a little cake from the bakery. I love the ones with the green frosting and the little rabbits on them," she recalled in a happy lilt. "I usually eat all of it, but sometimes I'll give a little to Ralph..."

"Your best friend, right?" Hayden said even though he remembered that information from what she had told him in the Training Center. He didn't want her to linger for too long on the fact that she probably wouldn't be seeing him or her mother again.

"Yeah," the girl said enthusiastically. "I wonder if he's okay..."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Hayden said a little too quickly. He shut his mouth immediately afterwards and glanced backwards, but the girl didn't seem to have noticed his slip. It was obvious that _she_ was the one who needed help.

They had reached the end of the tree line. Sure enough, the Careers had left someone to guard the Cornucopia. However, it was only one person - the male from District 2.

Mica inched up behind him and glanced up at him with worried hazel eyes.

"Why are we back here? You said it wasn't safe," she whispered.

Hayden smiled weakly. "We need supplies. But there's only one today, maybe I can convince him...please just stay here and if anything happens to me run."

"But...Hayden...don't-"

He didn't let her protests get to him or else he would lose all of the courage that he had mustered to get them back to this point. He left her in the cover of the trees and emerged from the shadows, arms held up in what was hopefully a nonthreatening position.

The Career boy automatically turned to him, holding up a crossbow. However, there was also a wickedly shiny and sharp sword at his feet that he could pick up in a flash.

One of the arrows went flying from the crossbow before he could make it halfway across the field, but it landed with a loud thud a few feet away from him. Hayden froze mid-step, hoping that it was just a warning, not a misfire.

"Wait, please hear me out..." he urged. "We have a truce now, don't we?"

The dark haired tribute lowered his weapon, his tall form straight and broad-shouldered but not hugely muscular like some tributes from Two in the past. In terms of strength, they might have been about evenly matched, but in terms of skill it was a different matter entirely.

Hayden was just going to have to rely on his words here. "I don't want weapons, just food or at least something to get water with," he explained, trying to sound as nice as he could in such a situation. At least the crossbow wasn't pointed at his throat at the moment. "Can we talk?"

The dark haired Career had sharp blue eyes, but he didn't have that glint of madness that other Careers sometimes had - the Career girl from Two was definitely one of those types. This one was different, a little calmer, and he nodded once, much to Hayden's relief as he stepped forward.

Now to just get the supplies and get out of here alive. He wouldn't put it past a Career tribute to give him what he wanted and shoot him in the back as he was retreating. What a lame end that would be.

Hayden smiled and lowered his hands. "I'm Hayden," he offered.

He thought that the other boy wasn't going to answer. He allowed the Career to gather a few supplies and shove them in a backpack for him. There were plenty of weapons all stacked up along the walls of the Cornucopia, but he wasn't about to touch any of those.

"Agro," replied the black haired Career as he turned to address Hayden with dark eyes that were impossible to read.

* * *

Sorry this is so short, I didn't know what to do, but I'm slowly getting a proper rhythm going.

Most of the throwaway characters are mine (like the girl who died in the beginning). Agro is mine as well, but his name isn't meant to be a reference to the "agro" state that you see in video games lol.

If anyone is interested in being a beta reader for the new story, let me know? Using the site's beta system makes me uncomfortable, since I haven't ever talked to those people.


	6. Bedfellows

**The Timetrade**

**Author's Notes:** So so sorry for the really late update (and it's a rather small one at that). I just kinda lost direction for this story after taking a really long break to play some video games. In the meantime, I've created a tumblr for general writing stuff so you can check that out if it interests you. I plan on writing little character blurbs and just random ramblings about stories on there. The url is just my username, chromemuffin, at tumblr dot com. In other news, the new story is going a long a little better than this one at the moment.

* * *

**Chapter Six: Bedfellows**

Although Hayden was smiling, Agro could see the nervous glint in the younger boy's light brown eyes. The way his thin form shifted steadily as he watched Agro shove a few bottles of water and packages of crackers and bread into a backpack betrayed his friendly tone as he chattered nonsensically about the arena's climate. Even when Agro's back was turned to him, he could hear the almost nonexistent tremor in his voice.

Agro paused in the middle of adding a box of purification tablets into the backpack, his back straight as he crouched on the ground. He heard a slight hitch in Hayden's words, but he was quite certain that the boy either didn't have a weapon or wouldn't be able to draw it in time to attack Agro even if he did have one.

It gave him an opportunity to think. Not that he had been sitting in front of the Cornucopia, staring into space for the past day without thinking of a single substantial thought. None of the Careers, Agro included, had imagined that anyone would be foolish enough to walk right up to it, though.

When he stood, Agro did not give Hayden the backpack immediately. Instead, he walked over to the inner walls of the metallic structure that grotesquely stuck out of the serene landscape. He grabbed a few weapons that were easy to carry - daggers and knives, short swords, a compact lance, and the sort - and almost laughed at the startled expression on Hayden's face when he turned around.

Instead, he cracked a smile. Small as it might have been, it succeeded in calming Hayden down enough for Agro to approach without him running away. He held his arms out to his sides in a gesture of peace.

Then he handed one of the gleaming steel knives to Hayden, handle first. He thrust his arm out insistently. And reluctantly, Hayden took it, though he gripped it like a kitchen knife and seemed not to know where to go from there.

To his credit, he didn't try to wield the knife Agro had just given him. The other boy carefully placed it in the sheath Agro had tossed him. With Hayden's inexperience, he would probably injure himself if he tried to use it.

The draw of his brows and the flicker in his eyes broadcasted his confusion loud and clear. It only grew more pronounced as Agro turned back to the Cornucopia to pack a second bag.

"Why-"

"I don't agree with them," Agro announced in an unobtrusive voice, almost as if he was talking to himself. His thoughts turned to the others in his alliance.

His District partner, the bloodthirsty, debatably insane Kalypso. The enigmatic but amiable Iros and his partner, the formal-speaking Regina, from One. Air-headed and oblivious was Lethe, the District 4 girl. And then there were the other tributes from the outer Districts who they had cajoled into joining them.

Agro would have gladly joined them in the hunt, if this were a normal Game. With the announcement of those new rules, new competitors, and a penalty for not disposing of them, he had quickly changed his tactics and volunteered to stay behind to keep watch at the Cornucopia instead.

"By not agreeing, you mean...?" Hayden said hesitantly, cautiously. He could hear the transparent hope in his voice - and Agro's features darkened.

"We're all going to die one way or another," he said thickly, grip tightening around the rough canvas strap of the bag. "The only thing we get to chose is how it will happen."

"I can't say I don't agree, but..." Hayden said uncertainly. He paused, waiting for Agro to continue.

Agro shook his head, handing Hayden the backpack and slinging the spare one over his own shoulder. He looked down at his hands, clean and pale but lined with callouses from years of training with all sorts of weapons at the Academy in District 2.

These hands had been stained with blood before. Not many tributes had that going for them, but Agro didn't feel like it was much of an advantage.

He looked up at last, facing Hayden with narrow blue eyes. Not the best ally, he supposed, but then again...

Then again, it wasn't like Agro particularly wanted to win the Hunger Games.

He sighed, loosening his stance as to make the younger boy just a little more comfortable with his presence.

"I don't agree with their methods." Agro laughed out of the blue, though his chest ached just a little as he started walking forward, knowing that Hayden would follow. It took far too much effort to even walk, but he forced himself to keep on going.

"So why me?" Hayden ventured. "You could go by yourself."

"Those ten who appeared before us were skilled. They're people who have fought, maybe even killed, before. I don't want to go chasing after one of those guys."

Hayden made an inquisitive noise. He suddenly sped up, walking faster than Agro as if they were having a competition, though his serious face said otherwise.

Agro winced inwardly. Hayden walked in the same loose, carefree manner as -

He stopped himself from following that line of thought. If he did, he'd only want to put an end to this whole thing entirely, maybe even stab himself in the throat right in front of this guy. Let the audience in the Capitol laugh at his pitiful death. Let his parents and brother be disappointed in his performance, and let his classmates howl in outrage at being deprived of the chance at glory and honor for a guy who only ended up killing himself out of the blue.

"So how do _you_ want to do it?"

Agro glanced up at the artificial sky. "Those ten said that they have a target."

"Someone who will 'destroy the world'," Hayden filled in dubiously. He drew a hand through messy, dirty blond hair, shoulders tense as they reached the edge of the clearing and ventured into the fog and dense tree line.

"We can assume they don't want to kill all of us. They will _ignore_ us, as long as we don't attack them and as long as we aren't their target."

"Chasing after them is dangerous," Hayden confirmed. "Because we don't know a single thing about them. We know the other tributes' training scores and got to see each other during training at least."

Agro nodded.

"We have to...well, kill them though, otherwise..." Hayden quieted as they entered the trees. He led Agro to the right a bit, seeming to know where he was going. "Not a single one of us will be able to go home unless they're gone. We can't avoid them forever."

"And we aren't," Agro said firmly, startling the other boy. He glanced over at Hayden. He seemed decently strong, but had no skill with weapons at all, like most of the tributes from the lower Districts. "We just have to hunt them down _while they are hunting their own target_."

Hayden tripped. "Wha-?"

Agro smiled to himself. It had been a tactic they had discussed for years, alone, the rest of the Academy full of ideas of dying a warrior's death with pride and glory as their main priorities. But the tactics of normal Career tributes were simply for show - the other tributes were usually helpless lambs in a corral, ready for the taking.

Any real predator hunting its prey had to have a better plan if it wanted to live.

"This way, we may stand a chance even if they're as strong as they look. You want to go home, don't you?"

"Yes..." Hayden murmured, though he didn't seem so enthusiastic, as if he was thinking about something else at the moment. Agro tilted his head to the side in curiosity.

"Is there someone you want to win more?"

"Huh, ah..." Hayden hesitated, seeming to size Agro up again before sighing, shoulders slumped a bit. "My District partner is just twelve. A little girl. She's waiting for me to come back."

Agro frowned, instantly stopping in his tracks. "Are we walking in circles?"

"Maybe..."

He sighed, resisting the silly urge to move one hand to his hip. "I won't kill you two, so it's fine to call her out."

Agro watched as Hayden nodded and trotted away, calling out softly for his partner - Mica.

It would have been so easy to stab Hayden in the back and pull the girl out of the bushes and deliver a quick strike to her, too.

So easy, just like how Syro had died in his arms. How he had killed Syro so quietly, when he was least expecting it, when they were supposed to be saying their goodbyes before Agro went off to the Games.

Agro watched the small, thin girl emerge from the trees timidly.

He closed his eyes. He had a plan, had the skill and the brain to implement it, and two pawns he could use as he liked.

However, Agro did not particularly want to win the Games. Agro did not feel a strong desire to live, just a small urge of not wanting to die.

He wondered what was wrong with himself. Had he trained all those years for nothing? Trained, planned, and suffered ridicule for not wanting to power through the Games like an enraged beast, for nothing?

Even killed his best friend, just to give up before it even started?

"Mica, this is Agro. Don't worry, it's safe! He said that he'd help us. He even gave us all this stuff," Hayden said as he tried to coax Mica closer to Agro. The little girl was timid, rightfully so, but Hayden enticed her forward with the promise of water and food. Agro ended up digging around in his bag for a sealed package of crackers, holding the peace offering up with a strained smile.

When Agro closed his eyes, he could hear his heart beat harder in his chest.

At least one part of him didn't want to give up just yet.

* * *

Yeah, Agro's backstory is that he killed his best friend just before boarding the train to the Capitol. I might write a side story for him at some point, expanding on why he did that.


End file.
